HKB
What fame the soldiers with their captain share, And the vast circuit of the fatal war; For you in singing martial facts excel; You best remember, and alone can tell.
There stood a tow’r, amazing to the sight, Built up of beams, and of stupendous height: Art, and the nature of the place, conspir’d To furnish all the strength that war requir’d. To level this, the bold Italians join; The wary Trojans obviate their design; With weighty stones o’erwhelm their troops below, Shoot thro’ the loopholes, and sharp jav’lins throw. Turnus, the chief, toss’d from his thund’ring hand Against the wooden walls, a flaming brand: It stuck, the fiery plague; the winds were high; The planks were season’d, and the timber dry. Contagion caught the posts; it spread along, Scorch’d, and to distance drove the scatter’d throng. The Trojans fled; the fire pursued amain, Still gath’ring fast upon the trembling train; Till, crowding to the corners of the wall, Down the defence and the defenders fall. The mighty flaw makes heav’n itself resound: The dead and dying Trojans strew the ground. The tow’r, that follow’d on the fallen crew, Whelm’d o’er their heads, and buried whom it slew: Some stuck upon the darts themselves had sent; All the same equal ruin underwent.
Young Lycus and Helenor only scape; Sav’d—how, they know not—from the steepy leap. Helenor, elder of the two: by birth, On one side royal, one a son of earth, Whom to the Lydian king Licymnia bare, And sent her boasted bastard to the war (A privilege which none but freemen share). Slight were his arms, a sword and silver shield: No marks of honour charg’d its empty field. Light as he fell, so light the youth arose, And rising, found himself amidst his foes; Nor flight was left, nor hopes to force his way. Embolden’d by despair, he stood at bay; And, like a stag, whom all the troop surrounds Of eager huntsmen and invading hounds Resolv’d on death, he dissipates his fears, And bounds aloft against the pointed spears: So dares the youth, secure of death; and throws His dying body on his thickest foes. But Lycus, swifter of his feet by far, Runs, doubles, winds and turns, amidst the war; Springs to the walls, and leaves his foes behind, And snatches at the beam he first can find; Looks up, and leaps aloft at all the stretch, In hopes the helping hand of some kind friend to reach. But Turnus follow’d hard his hunted prey (His spear had almost reach’d him in the way, Short of his reins, and scarce a span behind) “Fool!” said the chief, “tho’ fleeter than the wind, Couldst thou presume to scape, when I pursue?” He said, and downward by the feet he drew The trembling dastard; at the tug he falls; Vast ruins come along, rent from the smoking walls. Thus on some silver swan, or tim’rous hare, Jove’s bird comes sousing down from upper air; Her crooked talons truss the fearful prey: Then out of sight she soars, and wings her way. So seizes the grim wolf the tender lamb, In vain lamented by the bleating dam.
Then rushing onward with a barb’rous cry, The troops of Turnus to the combat fly. The ditch with fagots fill’d, the daring foe Toss’d firebrands to the steepy turrets throw.